Branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study. Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’

1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics, its aims and significance. Links with other branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study.
Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’
1765 - D. Diderot
Universal Encyclopaedia of Arts and Sciences
O. O. Potebnia
members of the Prague Linguistic Circle
L. Weisberger
Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.):
-full entries for 171,476 words in current use + 47,156 obsolete words + 9,500 derivatives (in subentries);
-nouns - over half, adjectives - about a quarter, verbs -about a seventh; the rest is made up of interjections, conjunctions, prepositions, etc.
Lexicon (syn. vocabulary, word-stock, lexis; Ukr.словниковий склад мови) is the total number of words that make up a language.
Studies of Lexicon
lexicon formation
lexicon stratification
lexicon organisation (studied by Lexicography)
Studies of Word-Groups
proper names (studied by Onomastics)
terms (studied by Terminology)
phraseological units (studied by Phraseology)
Studies relevant to words, word-groups, and lexicon
-functions of lexical units in speech (studied by Functional Lexicology)
-the meaning of lexical units (studied by Lexical Semantics)


2. Methods of lexicological analysis: componential analysis, IC – UC analysis, contrastive analysis etc.
General observations
Statistical analysis
Contrastive analysis
-Charles Bally (Geneva School of Linguistics), Vilém Mathesius (the Prague Linguistic Circle), Robert Lado (Ann Arbor School of Ethnolinguistics) Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Language Teacher
-a synchronic, comparative study of two or more languages or language varieties; it can be carried out at three linguistic levels: phology, grammar, and lexis;
-generally, both similarities and differences are studied although the emphasis is usually placed on differences thought to lead to interference (i.e. negative transfer, the faulty application of structures from one’s native language to the second language);
-in the focus of the study are: problem pairs (i.e. the words that denote two entities in one language and correspond to two different words in another language, e.g. BrE. clock, watch – Ukr. годинник); polysemantic words, e.g. BrE. a head of a person / bed / coin – Ukr. голова людини / узголов’я ліжка/ сторона монети; synonymic sets; difference in the collocability, e.g.тонка книга – a thin book, тонка ирония – subtle irony, тонка талія – slim / slender waist, тонкий смак – refined taste,тонкий голос – thin voice